There is Nothing on the Desert
by Rubinia
Summary: Dr Elisabeth Shaw reached the distant planet, where the race of creators of entire humankind lived. She has the need to ask important questions, like: Why did you made us?, yet here she is the one to give answers - unvoluntary.
1. Chapter 1

Sturdy shoe-laces claped on harsh stone and grayish white robes danced on the air of late afternoon hour. Blasts of wind through dense stillness indicated the storm was comming. Not a bird sang, even flees were gone, entire nature in stunned awaiting. Only the trees waved and whailed, as if in grieve, deeply moving poetic souls and bringing forth from unexistence the endless line of twin-like poems of entirely poor taste. There was that reserch of old, a bit crazy, but surely likeable botanic professor, what was his name... Ger-onious or Guroo-taloi or something else. He had a hand to plants. My beloved E- immersely loved these huge flowers he planted and breeded with greatest care and skill. I still have that cactus in the pot. I doubt I'll ever get rid of it, the only thing that lasted. Women are mean, and science is surely a woman. I can tell that.  
Should Prof. G. be of more decent specialisation, genetics for example, he had quite a chance for living. Who knows, maybe even more than living: synthetic immortality as a name in, thick above the measure, tommes of Patent. Grandchildren would be proud. Truerly, he had little chance to father his progeny without due fame. I can't think of many pairs who actually do have a child. Small ones are trouble, the bigger as they grow. Yet the name to carry on and decent lineage are still worth its price. E-, she shouldn't act so emotionally. I understand her, a bizzare loner in midst of us, I can accept that what is an obvious and crude mistake. I think her frustration is misinterprated and the majority of research simply ommited the vague fact about her mind-physical-psyche state: she is so much different than us. Multiple sources and notable experts described her precisely as if another sentient speciment, while nearly countless others measured her with tools shaped for far more advanced creatures, suitable for such as humble me. It doesn't surprise at all that she reacted in anger and confusion. How often, how easy we forget about boundaries below our limits which we tresspassed millenias ago.

E-, she was like a butterfly. A one-day-living flee. In physical terms she was exactly as we wanted them. Minor variations, such like her fiery red hair and randomly arranged moles, all are within error braces. In other terms of functionality she resembled us as expected. An extraordinary example of somewhat old-fashioned type of femine charm. If she can be attractive for us, can we be to her? Is such a question a warning red-light that the experiment gone wrong, missaiming goal? It would be weird if it wasn't scarry, then; the last misstargetted project we've done became an event so major and destructive we count millenias since then. Our old world melted. It's no glory in having such a history record, no shame to cover the fact.

E- was overly bothered with her companion whom she called David. She asked perpetuerly about him, his whereabouts, his safety and condition. Admirable care, yet tiresome and pointless. We've tested android and personally I found him utterly boring. Cold, egoistic, purpose-targeted mechanical mind. It is, in fact, curious in a way how such a being came to existence. Contrary to common opinion, we're quite used to minor failures and construction errors in our work. Yet a machine made of metal, plastic, glass and rare soil metals powered by solar energy or unorganic composers - it stands alone as a proof the project got overly weird. It shouldn't ever come to being there, upon all criteria we put on that project. Short project, now not important one. Soon we shall quit it. We're in no need of it, no more than of a massive production of these boring synthetics. One more ancient technology that proves itself useless.

We have so little time, she and I. We scanned her through, I could watch endlessly these data and perhaps I shall. When she was still vivid and living, though, I couldn't waste the precious whiles. What is a thirty years? What is another thirty? I could easly clone her and stuff the copy with precious memory retrieved from the oryginal. For some unknown reason the idea seems disgusting, as profanation. What a forgot word! Straight from old, old times when living had a meaning. When we could sacrifice ourselves, our lives, our ambition. The greates knowledge is not behind the glass of brainwaves scanner, it lies behind uniquacy and splendour. Both cannot be multiplied. Even with all our might, I would gain but a bleak copies.

I believe I found a way to lift her spirits up. Normally we don't interfere into speciment as it obviously disrupts the scientific process of gathering data for further research. Yet I rationalise E-'s already scanned through. Her expected lifespan is estimated on riddiculous value. In proportion to her current expieriences and memory data we've retrieved from her brain, I believe it is safe to assume she won't give us nothing more or at least - important. I'm satisfied with the results. Many doctors and proffesors I know currently write articles and dispute about humanity on all levels of interest, all basing on one precious source. There'll be higher degrees made on the subject. It's extraordinary rare to unite such a vast cyrcle of us around one scientific issue, quite narrow and simple, too. At times I think I'm not the only one who admire her.

I visited her today after necessery preparations. I made sure to wear three dots on my chests, which is the simplest way for her to distinguish me from others. I brought her some pineapples and a bottle of wine, the latter artificially improved to perfectly match the taste, bouquet and density of what she kept in her memories. Our pineapples are blue, which is a minor detail.


	2. His Whereabouts

Chapter 2: His Whereabouts

* * *

He was put on a shelf. Dust and silence. Grasping for seconds as they pass, pearl-like drops of water. Time. Always present. Such elusive.

He hasn't been put together yet. Perhaps never shall. The finders secured each and every biomechanical part preventing further damage, but paid no interest in conducting even slightest repairs. Immobilized and disfunctional sample of manequin. Mr Weyland would weep and cry. David's lips curved in slightest implication of smile. He's always been irony sensitive.

/ _With the body shattered I shall wander lands of mind._ / Data processing abilities were, to the extent he was able to determine, intact and efficient as ever. David considered for a while the two years of simmilar loneliness spent as cybernetic mastermind of Prometheus spacecraft mission. To put simply the job was crew caretaker.

/ _She dreamt on playing viola in a garden_. Standing under apple-tree branches. Being a child. Modest, muddy-colour dress and naturally brown hair curled down the elbows. _She dreamt of the music even though in stasis state every man is dead deaf._  
What an amusing attitude. Such an elegant rebel root!

He pondered over dark and long star journey they finally travelled. An odyssey persecuted to meet against all odds the ultimate goal of Prometheus mission. David hold on the memory and savoured it in prolonged moment. Despite her human fragility and grevious loss, surrounded by all things inhumane the woman dreaming in notes had one unwithered wish. How could he assist her in his disembodied state? A pity and a shame.

Tasting dust on dry lips, David contemplated all monotone events of twenty-eight years long space flight on stolen ship in borrowed time. He never managed to persuade her into repairing him.

"I can't." she kept saying, biting her lips, troubled.

David would give the secret of her husband's death away to know her motives, but such a revealation wasn't likely a fitting leverage.

Should he regained the denied body integrity he'd be in operative state. Thus placed in opportunate position to active stand. Appropriately applicated force may rocket a globe out of its orbit. David knew how to do it and capable arms were the only thing he lacked. Head separated from the torso; in such a state he wasn't much of help. Indeed, helpless, he had no way to act accordingly.

The day they arrived on distant planet the both star-travellers were separated. Never certain if she is dead, he faced eternity on sturdy shelf in dim laboratory.

/ _Regret? Not a concept I'm familiar with._ /

* * *

David counted on the time. With fluid whiles he measured would-be heartbeats.

Then laboratory doors opened. Well-build pale figure came in and the lights awakened, emanating steadly from walls and the ceiling. The man (but he was not a man) hastly but efficienly gathered all parts belonging to David, head included, and put them into container suit for hermetic transportation. Three colinear dots on his chest, seemingly simmilar to proudly worn orders, had a glassy gleam in the bright light. In no time he left the room leaving it androidless.


End file.
